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As part of an ongoing cannabis law reform effort in Michigan, voters in three more Michigan cities will soon have the chance to do what their elected officials regularly fail to do: pass laws that decriminalize a small amount of cannabis for personal adult use.

The Detroit Free Press reports today that three Michigan cities-Ferndale, Jackson and likely Lansing-will have binding voter initiatives that effectively decriminalize cannabis possession in these three municipalities.

Numerous other cities in Michigan have already adopted decriminalization, as have 17 other states overall, and as former MI NORML president and current chair of Coalition for Safer Michigan Tim Beck notes in the article that passing these three decriminalization ballots will likely be the ‘tipping point’ for state legislators in Michigan to pass state-wide reforms.

State Rep. Rory Ellinger, a Democrat from University City, plans to introduce legislation next session to legalize pot in the state, modeled after the successful reform effort in Colorado. It will definitely be a long shot here, but this will be the first time a lawmaker in Missouri has introduced a proposal of this nature.

"I expect there will be a lot of good people that feel marijuana is wrong, that it leads down a path of worse drugs and trouble and so on," he tells Daily RFT. "I respect their opinion, but I think that it can all be disputed."

He continues, "I don't know anyone who has ever died of a marijuana overdose."

Ellinger was behind the proposal this past legislative session to decriminalize marijuana, which simply meant reducing the punishments for low-level pot possession charges. Pot, under that initiative, would still be illegal. That bill advanced further than it ever has in the past with a formal hearing in the House of Representatives on the very last day of the session in May.

Ellinger says he plans to reintroduce this decriminalization proposal again and also a separate bill to legalize pot altogether.

By now most medical cannabis activists are aware that several medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state were raided Wednesday. While the federal government continues to raid medical cannabis providers on a routine basis, the 18 raids were such a rare show of force that major news outlets have picked up on the story, with NBC reporting that a DEA agent added insult to injury by boasting to a raided provider that“[t]hings are going to be hell for you.” These raids constitute one of President Obama’s single biggest days of paramilitary action in the federal crackdown on medical cannabis patients and providers, but what did this massive offensive cost taxpayers?

According to ASA’s What’s the Cost? report, the investigations and raids may have cost taxpayers $12,327,732. While the raids themselves cost just over $300,000, the lengthy investigations leading up to the raids cost taxpayers a staggering $12,014,334 according toASA’s calculations. This amount far exceeds the average of $180,000 that the federal government spends fighting its war on medical cannabis. In 2012 alone, the DEA used 4% of its budget on medical cannabis suppression.

This is not the first time the first time the feds have launched a massive offensive against Washington state patients and providers. In 2011, 14 Seattle-area dispensaries were raided in similar fashion. Earlier in that year, the US Attorney for Washington issued a threat letter to the Governor Christine Gregoire which helped bully her into line item vetoing the dispensary portions of a bill that passed both the Washington House and Senate.

Even with the federal government going to such great lengths to prevent the successful passage and implementation of medical cannabis laws, an ever-increasing number of states have chosen to adopt them. With support for safe and legal access to medical cannabis now at 85%, nobody knows how much longer the federal government will continue to waste precious resources to crack down on medical cannabis, but without Congressional action to stop the madness, there is unfortunately no end in sight. ASA urges everyone who cares about safe and legal access to medical cannabis to join the Peace for Patients campaign and make sure their members of Congress take action to end the federal crackdown.

DENVER — The city council, meeting as a committee of all 13 members, voted 7-5 Monday afternoon to move forward with a proposal to levy a five percent tax on recreational marijuana next year.

That municipal tax, which must be approved by voters, would likely come on top of the 25 percent combined statewide tax rate, which voters must also approve this November.

The council was divided on the tax rate conundrum: setting the rate too high, the industry worried, might lead would-be legal customers to go to the black market, while setting it too low, many council members argued, might leave the city without the $9 million in revenue they believe they’ll need to regulate marijuana shops.

In the end, they settled on an initial five percent rate, which is what Mayor Michael Hancock’s administration was pushing for, that will take effect on January 1, 2014, when recreational marijuana becomes the law of the land.

But the council also voted to leave the city come wriggle room, allowing a sliding scale of sorts so that members can vote in the future to lower the rate to 3.5 percent or to raise it as high as 15 percent depending on the revenue stream.

This is a perfect example of a dumb ass kid who doesn't know what the hell he is doing. It's just like someone who's never really drank alcohol before and starts taking shots of Parton. The media loves to exgerate by calling Cannabis Concentrates "very dangerous" but yet have you ever heard of it harming someone? I didn't think so, it may cause people to get sick or feel anxious and have other symptons that you could relate to drinking too much but it's not something that can harm or kill you.

Two minutes after taking a five-second hit from a vaporizer, Josh felt the effects of the earwax marijuana rushing over him.

"I felt like I was gonna die," the 17-year-old recalled. "The movie we were watching started to look 3-D. I kept seeing lights."

What the others in the group Josh was with had failed to tell him when they offered the drug to him, was that earwax marijuana can include up to 90 percent THC.

In short, it's highly hallucinogenic. And, knowledgeable sources say, it can be very dangerous to certain people.

Officials on Solano County's Alcohol and Drug Advisory board, say they know little about earwax marijuana "Cannabis Concentrates" -- its nickname derived from its appearance -- or its potential dangers.

The night Josh was under the drug's influence, someone telephoned Rhonda, Josh's grandmother. She picked him up and drove him to the hospital -- where his hands were handcuffed to the bed rails and he was later arrested.

LOS ANGELES — Until she introduced “magic cheese” to her sick and aging bulldog, Laura Bugni-Daniel watched him suffer for two years. He’d spend his days lying down or throwing up.

Today, at age 12, he plays like a puppy through the day, his fur is soft and he sleeps at night, soothed not by magic, but by the dose of marijuana in that cheese.

Bugni-Daniel is part of a growing movement to give medical marijuana to pets in pain. Many urge caution until there’s better science behind it. But stories abound about changes in sick and dying pets after they’ve been given cannabis — even though it isn’t a proven pain killer for man or mutt, and it’s an illicit drug under federal law despite being legal for people in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

‘Vet Guru’

Leading the charge is Los Angeles veterinarian Doug Kramer, 36, known as the “Vet Guru,” who felt it was his duty to speak out while he has no family that would feel a verbal or financial backlash.

“I grew tired of euthanizing pets when I wasn’t doing everything I could to make their lives better,” he said. “I felt like I was letting them down.”

Pot eased his Siberian husky’s pain during her final weeks, after she had surgery to remove tumors. Not only did Nikita stop whimpering while using cannabis, but she started eating, gaining weight and meeting him at the door again.

It gave him six extra weeks with his dog before he had to euthanize her, he says. It wasn’t a cure, but he thinks it freed her of pain and improved her last days.